Eastern Market | Detroit.
The blog is back online. I’ve been traveling and had to give the posting a break for the last five or six weeks. Where I last left off was a series of posts about a visit to Detroit in September 2016. This will be the fifth (and last) in the series.
One of the many excellent recommendations I got for my stay in Detroit in 2016 was the Eastern Market area. Jeff, if you are reading this, thanks again for that tip. It was a really, really good one.
It’s about a mile northeast of the city’s downtown (in the central east side near the Lafayette Park neighborhood). Dating back to the 19th century it is said to be the largest open-air flowerbed market in the United States and also the largest historic public market district in the country.
Sadly, I got there on a non-market day. A few of the nearby wholesalers were open, but it was very quiet in and around the core market complex itself.
It was still a fantastic walkabout in the district surrounding the market buildings.
At the edges there are a few abandoned and decaying buildings (something fairly ubiquitous in most of shrinking Detroit) but otherwise it was incredibly vibrant and seemingly thriving. In the dictionary entry for “buzz” this place needs to go in. Wow. I loved it.
There were multiple public art installations taking place. Yeah, the hipsters abounded (it seemed like there had been an airlift from Brooklyn), but, generally, it looked like a very diverse area (reflecting the diversity I saw in so many other parts of the city).
Lunch was at BB’s Butchers Inn. Five stars.
You can read more about the “Murals in the Market” program here.
This is it for my Detroit posts. A city full of contradictions. It’s an amazing place to visit – go see for yourself. I got there with a lot of preconceived ideas and left with a far better understanding of the city’s possibilities as well as its challenges. As I have said in prior posts, I will definitely be back.
The street art in this post inspires me to do some more street art posts. Perhaps New York in the next post. See you then!
